Fred
Wellman is the founder-CEO of ScoutComms, a social enterprise
communications, advocacy and philanthropic strategy firm supporting veterans,
military families and organizations committed to their well-being.

How did you get into the military?
What did you do and for how long?

I
“rebelled” as a teenager and instead of going to the University of Missouri
like the rest of my family I got crazy and went to the United States Military
Academy at West Point. I graduated in 1987 and was commissioned as an Aviation
officer and eventually found myself as a Scout helicopter pilot in various
units around the world and in Operation Desert Storm. I served 13 years before
leaving the Regular Army for the Reserves only to be mobilized on 9/11 and return
again to the active force. I deployed with the 101st Airborne
Division for opening year of Operation Iraqi Freedom and while in Iraq found
myself supporting the local population and eventually in the news. The division
commander was then Major General David Petraeus and he decided to make me the
division public affairs officer when we returned. I later served as his
spokesman in Iraq as well as then Lt. Gen. Martin Dempsey who is now the
Chairman of the Joint Chiefs. I attended grad school at Harvard’s Kennedy
School of Government and was assigned to the Pentagon. After my third Iraq tour
in 2008 I decided to retire after 22 total years of service.

If you don’t find a job, create
one! Right?

Yes! After leaving the military, I joined a small firm but soon
found out that it wasn’t a good fit. Then I interviewed for jobs, but no one
was hiring me in November of 2010; so I struck out on my own.I saw there was a niche for someone who
understood the military, defense and veterans’ worlds at larger PR firms. So, I
started my own firm essentially as a professional sub-contractor to larger PR
firms. Gradually we just grew on our own merits and kept picking up unique
opportunities and partners. Our big break came when The Home Depot Foundation decided
to focus on veterans housing issues and brought us on to their team for the
launch and program three years ago and since then more and more of our work has
focused exclusively on veteran’s issues. For the last year or so, a significant
part of our work has focused on veteran family issues, on military caregivers
for our wounded and disabled veterans, and on supporting the Get Skills to Work
program bringing veterans to work in the advanced manufacturing industry. We
also got involved in supporting the Institute
for Veterans and Military Families at Syracuse University,
which does a lot of the thinking on these issues and focuses on
entrepreneurship and job training. So really, that’s our thing.

ScoutComms, my company, which is based in
Virginia, has now been around for three years and at the beginning of this year
we turned it into a social enterprise ‘Benefit Corporation’. So we now have a
structure as a benefit corporation with social mission focused on veterans and
military families.

We’re really a weird little company. It’s foundation are communications-based
initiatives; advocacy, being experts in our field; helping craft philanthropic
strategies and reach veterans and military families. It’s just sort of a unique
niche, and we’ve gotten pretty good at it. A lot of people first hire us as PR,
but also look to us as a military expert, if you will, even though I hate that
term – “expert.” Then, when we grew, since all we did was veterans and military
families, we thought we would go out and meet non-profits for them, we’d vet
them for the client, we would look for opportunities for them to apply their
mission to new ways, sniffing out fakes or poorly run non-profits. I think we’ve
done it all, as far as being people who understand the veteran’s space and help
our clients navigate this unusual sector.

As
a PR firm, what do you exactly do?

We are specialists in focusing on the military and veteran’s media
and target audiences. Take The Home Depot for example. On the corporate side
we’ve quite a bit and won awards for our work with them. Our biggest project
was the Mission:
Transition campaign last year. We partnered with the MSLGroup
on that one and we were brought in by The Home Depot to serve as the military
focused extension to the campaign. We handled the military focused media, government
media, and outreach to the military transition programs to reach potential
attendees. We did a lot of outreach to the Army, for example the Army’s
Soldier for Life campaign and the Army’s community relations program
to get as many soldiers as possible to attend the workshops with postings in
every Army transition office around the world. We also leveraged our extensive
relationships with the veteran’s service organizations and non-profits to get
the word to their members and reach more of the veteran population. In the end
every workshop at over 100 locations were filled and the campaign won several
awards including two Silver
Anvils from PRSA.

We have been very fortunate to be part of supporting GE’s
leadership of the Get Skills to Work
program. Just over a year and a half ago, GE recognized they faced a skills gap
of employees in the manufacturing industry. To address it they decided to focus
on bringing veterans into the industry, but they wanted to go beyond just a
hiring program – they had that already. So they partnered with the Manufacturing Institute,
which is a part of the National Manufacturing Association here in Washington
and several other companies and non-profits. Now they’ve built a coalition of now over five hundred
companies, ranging in size from twelve-man operations here in Fredericksburg,
VA to GE, Alcoa, Boeing, Lockheed Martin, the founding partners. And they’ve also
built a coalition of over fifty schools, where veterans can go Get Skills to
Work training, at community colleges and technical schools, to get advanced
manufacturing certifications and qualifications. We’re talking CNC Machine
Operator, Machinist, Welder, Logistics Analyst’s there’s some eleven specific
career fields, and then these guy and girls find jobs in the manufacturing
industry. The program is growing every day and is really just getting its legs
and making a difference in the community.

What are your
top recommendations to organizations?

I apply the “kitchen sink” approach to working with the veterans and
military family communities. In other words the challenges for these
communities is that they don’t have just one solution so we need to throw
everything and the kitchen sink to solve the problems. I tell organizations to
look for areas that aren’t being addressed. For example, while young veteran
unemployment is finally coming down to manageable levels we continue to see our
military spouses struggle to find work and it impacts the military community. I
believe organizations should seek opportunities for impact giving instead of
throwing out “cardboard checks” where possible. In other words, find quality
non-profits that are making a difference in the communities and ensure your
money is making as big an impact as possible. I believe giving should align
with a companies core principals and priorities. If your company is oriented on
the health and wellness of its employees then seek out organizations like Team
Red, White & Blue which use physical fitness activities to bring veterans
and their communities together. Don’t believe the hype about veteran’s
challenges fitting in companies and especially all of us having PTSD or other
problems. The overwhelming majority of veterans in poll after poll are well
adjusted and better for their service. There are clearly those in our community
struggling but don’t assume all veterans are in that place.

1 comment:

I'm amazed by how creative people can get when it comes to making their own based upon needs in different markets. It creates interest when one can figure out that need before the company or organization even knows they have the need in the first place.